


no one of consequence

by forpeaches (bluecarrot)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Brotherly Affection, F/M, I suppose, Implied/Referenced Incest, Sex, dont blame me blame GRRM, it’s the Lannisters what can I do, that happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-05-15 16:33:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19299535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/forpeaches
Summary: “I like sleeping with you because you are beautiful, and —““Oh, shut up. They took your hand, not your eyes.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is a dumping ground for my MANY UNSETTLED EMOTIONS about stupid knights in love (love!!) 
> 
> as such, it is always marked as “finished” because i never _plan_ to write more chapters. 
> 
> just. the words, you know. stuff happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 20 june 2019.

“We have to meet my brother.” He sounded tense.

“I thought you and Lord Tyrion were ... amicable.”

“We are. Generally.”

“Then why are you dragging your steps? And why do you say I _have_ to meet him? I’m no one of consequence.”

He stopped walking, but would not face her.

“You’re ashamed of me,” she said.

He laughed at that, and turned. “Ashamed, in front of Tyrion? That would be difficult to accomplish. He’s married whores. Well, only one, but he would have married a second at least, if our father—“

She wasn’t interested in any more longwinded speeches about his terrible family. “Tell me what you’re frightened of.”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Only that you’ll find him more handsome than me.” He smiled his brightest at her then, just as he always did when he lied.

 

*

 

Tryion was seated when they entered; he rose on seeing Jaime, and stopped in his greeting when he saw who followed. “You’ve brought a —is she a knight? Do you distrust me now? Do you mean to cut me down where I stand for my misdeeds? Oh, for the days when a man could trust his brother.”

“Back when mermaids swam in the water around Casterly Rock, yes. This is — may I introduce — Lady Brienne of Tarth.”

Brienne had stepped forward and bowed when Jaime spoke, it was basic courtesy. “My lord, I -“

But Tyrion did not look at her. He looked at his brother. “She wears heavy boiled wool, and a sword, Jaime. Are you readying for battle?”

“Ser Brienne likes to be prepared.”

They were talking as though she weren’t there.

She felt her hand touch her sword and reminded herself to let it hang loose, to relax, to not to be incomparably rude.

“So you did knight her.” He did look at her then. “Was that before or after you fucked her?”

“Tyrion.”

“My lord, Ser Jaime and I —“

“She must have been difficult to bed. Did you have to remove the armor first? Rather like cracking open an oyster.” He was still staring at her.

She wished for a dagger. Her fingers twitched.

“ _Tyrion_. You are speaking of a lady, and a knight, and — and a lady.”

And his brother finally looked at him again. “Oh, Jaime. You idiot,” he said. “Wearing your heart on your sleeve for daws to peck at. Whatever would Father say.”

And he went to the table and poured himself a drink.

 

*

 

“I apologize for Tyrion. He’s—”

“Don’t apologize. He’s right, and he’s right to say it. What _would_ your father say?”

“Father would be horrified and furious, and I am hope that wherever he is now, he can see us and weeps every time I kiss you. — Nevermind; that’s an unappealing thought. I certainly do not want to think about him when I am kissing you, or really at any other time.  He was a hateful beast and nothing would give me more satisfaction than — Brienne, stop pacing. _Listen_ to me. Tyrion is right about Father, he would hate everything about you just as he hated everything about me, but that doesn’t mean I —“

“You _ought_ to care.”

He shook his head. “Care about what? That you’re a knight? You’re a noblewoman born, not some tavern girl from Fleabottom. I’m not lowering myself in any way, nor would I give a single shit about it, if that’s what you’re —“

“I’m ugly,” said Brienne. “And you know it. Do you _enjoy_  fucking someone no one else wants?”

“I like _fucking_ you _because_  you are beautiful, and —“

“Oh, shut up. They took your hand, not your eyes.”

He took a deep breath. “You’re not formed quite in the same way as most other women —“

“You can say it plain, Jaime. The truth won’t change if you lie.” Why was she fighting him on this, what difference did it make if he thought she was beautiful?

But it ached. Hearing Tyrion say it so plain ached. She wanted to hear him say it. She wanted to hate him, too.

He looked anywhere but at her, and he wasn’t smiling now. “Tyrion is a difficult person to care for. But I think you’ll ...”

He stopped.

“I’ll what? Learn to enjoy being mocked? Whore for your brother as well as for you?”

“Don’t.”

She was shaking; she knew he saw it. “You know what they say, you’ve heard them say it —“

“Truth,” he said, “doesn’t change, under all the lies that ride it and sweat.”

“You don’t think I’m beautiful,” she said to him.

He looked at her a long time. “What I _think_ doesn’t matter, my lady. Does it?”

 

*

 

She didn’t expect him to come to her that night. He had always done so, every night he could he came to her bed, for kissing and conversation and sleep, if nothing else.

And usually there was something else.

Today —

He’d only bowed and left her and spent the day behind closed doors with Tyrion, not even a winebearer coming and going, no one at all she could question.

Probably she could break in before the guards reached her; probably she could kill the guards anyway. Demand to be seen, heard.

And then what.

She could go on her knees before Jaime — or Tyrion — or one and then the next — until they called her beautiful.

She thought of all the things she had done rather than spend her life waiting to be flattered: and thinking, she stood at the window until the world turned dark.

 

*

 

Pounding at the door.

She had been asleep, she had been dreaming —

“Jaime? I mean — my lord? Ser?”

“Shut up,” he said to her, and brushed past.

“Jaime -“

“I _told_ you to stop talking.”

She stopped.

He came nearer; he was shorter by half a head, but pressed close as he could. He smelled like sickness and he grabbed her hard. “Is this what you want?”

“You’re drunk. Go away.”

He pushed her, rough, not to push her over but hard enough to leave a bruise. “Do you want to be _hurt,_ Brienne? Do you _want_ me to rape you? Do you want —“

“Stop.” She wouldn’t like to raise her hand against him, not like this, it wasn’t a fair fight when he was stupid with wine and — what?

Anger. He was angry. At her? Well, she was angry too. “Is this what you’ve done all day? Drank with your brother? A very lordly pass-time.”

“Oh, yes.” He sagged, shifting away, tension gone. “Tyrion is a great one for drinking. I’ve fallen — fallen out of the habit. Lost the skill. It is a skill, though you won’t believe me when I say it, Brienne of Tarth. You never believe me when I speak.”

“I do.”

“Do you really? You shouldn’t. I lie all the time. Swear this oath, Jaime. Swear another oath that contradicts the first one, Jaime, and make certain you keep them  
both. Drop this boy from the window, Jaime. Smile while Robert names your children, smile for me while I burn the city ...”

“I am not Cersei.”

“But I am still Jaime. Jaime Lannister. There’s only one of me, only one man like me, may the gods help us all. And I don’t regret it, I don’t regret any of it. Do you regret me, Brienne of Tarth?”

She didn’t regret anything about him. “Come to bed. Come with me.”

He resisted. “And then what? Will you whore for me? _Kingslayers whore,_ I’ve heard them call you that, Brienne, thinking I don’t hear. Or they think I agree, maybe. Should I go out and fight them all for you?”

But he slept as soon as his eyes shut, with her arms around him, mouth open and snoring lightly.

 

*

 

He woke at dawn, as soldiers will, and shut his eyes when he saw her looking at him. “I’m asleep,” he said. “Though I’d rather be dead. Let me die.”

“Pain in your head?” she said, with little sympathy. Her own head ached from weeping.

“It’s three sizes too large and pounding a war-drum. Brienne ..”

“I don’t want to talk about last night.”

“I was,” he said, “going to ask to use your dagger to end this suffering. Or rather, for _you_ to use it, because I’d prefer not move to do the work myself.”

For a man in agony, he certainly talked a lot. She rose, crossed the room, and opened the shutters. Light flooded the room.

Jaime swore.

She turned. “Do you remember what you said to me, the first night? after you bedded me?”

“ _Drink water for that headache_ _,_ I think is what I said. Do you happen to have any?”

“If I gave it to you right now, you wouldn’t like it ... Kingslayer.”

He squinted at her. “Why are you angry?”

“Why don’t you hate me?”

“Why don’t I — what?”

“That’s what you asked me. Why don’t I hate you.” She came to the bed, lifting the blankets and coming in alongside him; she raised it above their heads and hid them both beneath it.

Her gaze found his, in the semi-dark. “Tell me why I don’t hate you, Jaime Lannister.”

She saw him smile, faint as a candle’s shifting. “You like calling me by my name, Brienne of Tarth.”

“Sometimes.”

“You like saying it when I’m insi—“

“Don’t gloat. Answer me.”

“Because I stopped the Bloody Mummers from—“

“Wrong.”

He sighed. “Because I gave you that sword—“

“Wrong again, and worse.”

“Because ... what? Because I don’t stop my brother from maligning you, because I lie (as you say) and call you beautiful? Because I knighted you? No. You ought to have been knighted long ago and you knew that.”

“Giving a man bread is a gift, if he’s starving. Even if he’s a baker.”

“You will never starve,” he said. “You don’t need my gifts.”

“Wrong again. You’re very bad at this.”

Instead of speaking, he kissed her.

“Jaime.”

Again he kissed her and again.

“ _Jaime_.”

“Because you love me,” he said. “You love me.”

“Yes,” she said, and “yes,” when he lifted her shift up over her head, and “yes,” when he rolled over her, and then there was nothing more for either of them to say.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 20/21 june 2019.

“Lady Brienne,” said Tyrion, that next morning: and she looked up in surprise.

He hadn’t been expected, or announced, and she hadn’t heard him. She was losing her edge. _Soft living,_ she told herself, and something of that irritation was in her voice as she greeted him, standing.

He said: “May I ...”

“Of course.” It was his table, his chairs; she could hardly deny him a seat. Or did they belong to Jaime?

Not that Jaime would thank her for denying hospitality to his brother.

He said “Is that wine?” gesturing at the stone pitcher.

“Water, my lord.”

He winced. “Please don’t start with that _my_ _lord_ shit. It’s far too early for any sort of politeness. And don’t tell me it’s too early for wine, because it is never too early for wine. No, don’t go and summon someone! Dammit. This is not going as I intended.” And he rubbed his face as she sat down again, more slowly.

“Perhaps this would go better if you tell me why you are coming to see me today,” she said.

“Undoubtedly, you are right. Jaime said that about you — that you are often right. An annoying trait, especially because I so enjoy being right, myself. It’s one of the few pleasures left to the ugly and unloved. But I suppose you’re only one of those.”

“My lord —“

“My big brother said rather a lot about you. He’s infatuated, I thought. I called him a fool.”

She said nothing.

“I know a thing or two about being infatuated with the wrong women — ones who do not matter ... women of _the_ _wrong station,_ is what I mean — although no doubt you take offense at that description as well. You might be a quiet one but your eyes speak for you. I suppose you’ve gotten away with it because most people disregard you? But I can read them. I’ve had to learn, you know. And right now I can see you’d like to slit my throat for deliberately getting my brother drunk yesterday, and for calling you names today.”

She had considered it. “Names, my lord?”

“Ugly,” he said. “And low-born, and whatnot. I’ve heard you called _Kingslayer’s whore,_ as well, although that implies he sells you out and I don’t think either of you would allow that. You bed him, but it’s not for money. Not even a flicker in your gaze at that? Tell me, are you offended by the truth?”

“No.”

“Nor am I. Jaime said I would like you. Did he say that to you, about me? No, he did not. What did he say?”

And this time he waited for her to reply.

“Not much,” she said at last. But that was not sufficient; he waited still. She went on. “He said very little. I knew _of_ you, of course —”

“Yes, yes, the Imp of Lannister Hall, the freak, the fool, I know what they say, you don’t need to find a way to make it sound polite. Go on. Tell me of Jaime.”

“I know he cares for you.”

“He cared for our sister as well,” said Tyrion. “Although in rather a different way. For example, I never bore him children.”

Did he think her an idiot? “I knew that years ago. It was the very first thing he said to me.”

And Tyrion gave a great bark of laughter. “Never trust him to keep a secret, at least none of his own. He’s as transparent as you are.”

Brienne shook her head. “I’ve never found him so.”

“That’s because you love him. We are always finding mysteries in the people we love.”

“My lord—“

”And now I’m going to tell you a secret, since you are going to be my ... since you are here. But I want you to keep it from Jaime as long as you possibly can. Ah, you dislike that? It’s nothing of deadly import, I assure you. No venomous adders, or anything like that. It’s only this: he was right.”

She stared at him, manners forgotten.

“I do like you. You are intelligent, and you keep your mouth shut when you’ve nothing to say — a rare treat in this place.” He looked at the table, where no wine had mysteriously appeared, and went on. “What is more important — arguably more important — is that you love my brother. He needs more people who love him. You have no answer to that?”

She shook her head.

“ _And_ you look me in the face,” he said, as if it were an afterthought.

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“That,” he said, “is the first foolish thing I have heard you say. Or the first honest one. Or maybe it’s both. You know exactly why people don’t look at me; it’s the same reason they don’t look at you.”

“I have not lied, my lord.”

“Oh no, you don’t lie, do you? Simply stay quiet and let people think ... what they would think anyway, say what you will. So maybe you’re smarter than me, at that. But I’ve often found that unless I keep speaking, someone will take me for a footstool and step on me. I doubt that is an issue in your life. — So. You love him. Did you know it before I told you?”

Mouth dry, she nodded.

“Have you loved him long? Since you bedded him only, or — no, you knew it before that. I told you that your eyes speak loudly. They’re quite beautiful; do you believe that when people say it? Do they even look at you long enough to see? Don’t answer that, people are fools. When was it, Lady Brienne? Did he have both his hands?”

She didn’t reply.

Tyrion said, more gently: “My condolences on loving Jaime. He is not an easy person to care for.”

“Neither am I.”

“And you’re not an easy one to get to know. Not a drinker, so I can’t get you drunk. Not a talker, so I can’t lead you into telling stories. And you walk around as if you’ll need to fight at any moment ... no doubt it’s been true. But you’re alive, which means you’re stubborn, and you’re a woman knighted — which means you’re stubborn beyond all sense — and you were knighted by _Jaime_ , who has done a great many idiotic things for love but never ... never in armor.” He considered. “Although who knows what Cersei — nevermind.”

“I told you, I know of that.”

“Yes; but the specifics of old love affairs are best left unstated. I’ve certainly never asked him for details.” He gave a delicate shudder.

She bit the inside of her cheeks to keep a straight face.

He stared at her. “I do like you, Lady Brienne of Tarth.”

"That might be due to the fact that you haven’t let me speak a word, my lord.”

“I told you already that I don’t want you _my-lording_ me all over the place, and I suppose I can’t _make_ you stop calling me that, — you are probably one of those wretched people who emerged from the womb saying _thank you_ for the teat — but you might as well not bother with _saying_ it, since I’m going to keep pretending that you didn’t say anything when you _do_.”

She smiled at that, and he blinked. “Jaime said you had a miraculous smile. I truly thought he was exaggerating.”

“He likes my smile?”

“My lady,” he began in a voice she hadn’t heard from him before, and there was a strange expression on his face. “That is, I meant to say: Yes, Ser Brienne. He does.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did I mention my little brother is a liar? He’s a Lannister. It goes with the territory.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 21 june 2019.

She had not forgotten the half-sentence that Tyrion had let slip or pretended to let slip, but put off asking Jaime about it. She wouldn’t interrupt his supper, she thought, with questions.

She also declined to interrupt his after-supper-wine-and-conversation hour, and decided not to bother him as he sat looking out the window in the late evening — looking to the east, where early stars already hung thick and clear against the brushed-velvet depth of sky.

“What do you see?” he asked her.

“Nothing much. There’s a storm coming.”

“Where?”

“South. Over the water. See how it’s dimmer there, more grey? It’s a half-day off or more, if it doesn’t move further seaward.”

“That haze might as well be smoke drifting up from some lordling’s fire. How do you know it for storm?”

He was asking, not arguing. Not questioning her ability. “At — that is, my lord, when I lived on Tarth, I would go sailing. I learned to read the sky. Winds come up fast on the water, worse in certain seasons, and it’s death to be caught out in a small vessel under a storm.”

“Yes, but I meant for you to teach me, not lecture about boat safety. What embarrassed you just now?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re really terrible at dissembling. No wonder they let you run off and be a knight; you’d be a wretched failure at court. What were you going to say before, about Tarth? What did you cover up with that ‘my lord’ nonsense? No, don’t turn away.” He could only catch one of her hands and hold it, but it kept her in place; she let the other hang.

She said: “What did you tell about me to Lord Tyrion?”

He did not move away or drop her hand. “Nothing cruel, or untrue.”

That left a vast range of possibility.

He tilted his head. “Do you mistrust me? Do you think I speak out of turn?”

“Do you trust yourself, when he’s _deliberately_ got you drunk?”

He sighed, and let go. “I told him ... I told him you were honorable, and brave, and loyal. I told him you were the best fighter I had ever seen.”

“For a woman, you mean. And aside from yourself.”

“There were no qualifiers.”

She looked away.

Across the long black stretch of land, where the edge of water was just visible in the sliver of moonlight, the mist had grown. A storm for certain, but which way would it travel?

His breath tickled her ear. “I spoke more of myself than of you, if you find that a comfort.”

“You speak too much, Jaime.”

“Do you want me to stop talking to my brother, my only living relative and perhaps the only Lannister who _deserves_  to live, in case I mention your name?”

“You’re angry with me.”

“I'm -- I want you to tell me what is upsetting you, instead of this dance of hiding and — what _is_ wrong? What would help you? Do you need to spar? Have you been too long still in one place?”

“Yes,” she said, fierce. “I’m through with standing. Take me to bed, Jaime. I want to lay down.”

 

*

 

Late that night the storm broke overheard, pouring down in such a fury that Jaime roused himself to shut and latch the shutters against the rain blowing sideways.  
He crawled back in, lifting the covers with his right arm, grumbling. “I thought you said it was a day away from us still.”

Brienne didn’t stir. “The winds change. I told you. You don’t listen.”

“I listen to every word you say, as well as to your silences. Earlier, when you stopped yourself -- were you going to call Tarth your home?”

“It is.”

His mouth was a flat line. “Do you miss it? Do you long to return?”

“I do miss it.” Blue waters, clear and deep, and here and there the white cap of a cresting wave. The Keep — it could not be properly termed a castle — sat nestled high within the stones of the only mountain of any height. From her room she saw far far out, all the way to where the horizon became a rough indeterminate grey that meant land.

Other lands there were in plenty, but Tarth was _home_. Brienne had roamed as often and as far as they let her, covered in dirt from roaming the fields and climbing trees, coming back dripping from falling into rivers.

She liked the rivers. Rushes grew in the shallows and she waded in to find them, putting the flowers in her hair and using the reeds as a sword, waving it around to copy the movements she saw the squires practice. The flowers fell out soon enough, but she'd work on sparring all afternoon, just as the boys did. Step - step - parry - thrust.

Until her septa caught her at it, and beat her soundly with the same reed she’d used to play knight. Brienne had cried all during the whipping, and she cried every time she sat down or rose up from a chair for days. 

And as soon as the welts healed and her courage returned, she slipped out to the river and did it again.

When the septa caught her this time the girl did not hold in her screams, unladylike though it might be, and she fought back with her fists too. The noise brought her father, and he said ... he’d said ...

“I thought you liked the north.”

“I do.”

“But it isn’t home,” said Jaime.

It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t answer. What _had_ her father said that day?

The storm argued with the walls, and the shutters rattled. Thunder broke heavy.

“Brienne.”

“Would _you_ be content to stay at ... at the Wall? or even Winterfell? Would you miss the seasons and ways of things here, at home?”

“I think you have a somewhat unrealistic sense of my childhood,” he said. “It was not an easy and pleasant time in my life. I was prince, I was heir apparent, I was kept under as close watch as the crown jewels until Cersei convinced me to join the guard and they lost all hope of my succession.”

“Was your father angry?”

Her own father had shouted epithets, but not at Brienne. _If the girl wants to be a knight,_ he'd said, _she can damn well train for it properly. I won't have her beaten until she's spirit-broken, or til she runs away in her misery and ends up knifed along the roadside. Or worse._ He'd looked at her then.  _If you do this, you'll settle to it as a boy would. No more crying, not where they can see you. It's hard words and harder blows, and work until you feel your arms will fall off, and you can barely rise to your feet in the morning to take a piss. Is that what you'd have?_

She had no fear of him. _I want it,_ she'd said.

 _You'll have it,_ he said. _Or as much as you can manage._

_My lord --_

_Leave her be. By gods, am I to punish the girl for courage? The world will do enough of that._

But Jaime was speaking. “Did you ever _meet_ Tywin Lannister? Of course he was angry with me. He raged for days. But there was little enough he could do, the vows are for life — as we thought ... and anyway he was always raging. A cold rage. He was a cold man. But you are attempting to change the topic and I won’t let you. If you miss Tarth, why don’t you return? Nothing is keeping you here — no oath, no vow, no war to fight.”

She sat up; he followed. “There are always wars.”

“None of them are _yours._ None are mine either, thank the gods, not anymore. I’m free from that. But you — you’ve always been free. Nothing ties you here. If you want to leave, if you want to go to — to go home — then leave.”

 _Nothing ties you here._ “Do _you_ want me to go?” 

It took him a long time to answer, and the waiting was cold. She could not read his face.

“When,” he said, “ _when_ have I ever told you to leave me? When have I ever said I don’t want you nearby?”

Never. “But ...”

“I do not want you to return to Tarth. Not yet." And he pushed a piece of hair behind her ear. “Look. I don’t know what my brother said to you, to make you feel ... unwanted. Though I imagine he harried you until you fought back, so he could take your measure; it’s his way.”

“He was very polite.”

Jaime laughed aloud; it seemed strained. “Tyrion’s idea of polite conversation is unique. Did he hurt you?”

_Jaime told me I would like you._

She shook her head.

“Did he make you angry?”

She shook her head at him again, biting her mouth.  _He said you have a miraculous smile._

"What did he say?"

_Since you’re going to be my ..._

“He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.” Though she hadn’t believed it. Could not, even now.

“So you’re angry -- not leaving? You’ll stay?”

“Yes.”

“With me?”

“Yes, Jaime.”

“And — and — will you — if I sent a raven to your father, if your father — if he — would you —“

“See, you don’t listen. I’ve told you already. Yes.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 21? june 2019.

“I love her, and I mean to marry her.”

Tyrion looked up and squinted. Gods save them both,  _this_  was how Jaime started? They hadnt even began drinking yet. He poured two cups and held one out. “She’s a whore. Remember what happened last time one of us married a whore?”

Jaime didn’t move. “If you call her that again, I’ll have no living family left.”

Tyrion doubted that. But. “It’s what other people say. No doubt you’ve heard them.”

“I won’t hear it from you.”

“You’re not listening. _It is what other people say._ Do you want a wife other people call a whore, and think they could bed for a silver?”

“Cersei,” said his brother, sitting, “was sold to Robert Baratheon.”

“Jaime.”

“Sansa Stark was sold to you.”

“Yes, but I never—”

“Father would have sold _me_ off, too, if our dear sister hadn’t slipped the game on him by convincing me to join the Guard. Am I a whore? Is Sansa? Are you?”

“Humph,” said Tyrion: and drank.

“But yes, you’re right, there will be more snigggers of _Kingslayer’s whore_. Brienne has been called that for years, long before we ever bedded. She said to me once — _You call a woman ugly when you do_ not _want to fuck her, and you call her a whore when you_ do _.”_

“Very clever speech. But your words don’t mean shit. Oh, don’t look at me like that, I don’t think Lady Brienne is bending over for other men’s coin, and I don’t think she did for yours. It doesn’t matter what I think. What other people think _does_  matter.” He poured another. “I am sure your lady knight could cut down half the sellswords in Kings Landing before they got to you, and I know you are tired of fighting ...”

“ _Tired_ doesn’t explain it.”

“You want my advice?”

“Not especially.”

”Bed someone else and forget about her. Bed every prostitute between here and Dorne, if you need to do it. Just get rid of her. Or you’ll spend your life in battle.”

Jaime shook his head. “I’m through with fighting. And Brienne can fight her own battles. She nearly beat me, anyway.” He smiled, remembering.

Tyrion saw the expression and poured himself the last dregs of wine.

Jaime said: “You should see her fight. She’s the most efficient ... strong. And perceptive! I think she sees my moves before they’re started.”

“I like a little _mystery_ in the bedroom, myself. Did you fight her when you had both hands?”

“Only once, and I was chained. But it was long enough for my liking.”

“Seems a fair and honorable knight would loose your bonds. Since it was not an even match.”

“She couldn’t, she’d promised. But chains or no, she was better than me, I think. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He contemplated his untouched cup.

“So,” said Tyrion, “you were impressed by the clash of literal swords and decided to move on to the metaphorical sort. I always suspected that sort of thing was why the Kingsguard agreed not to marry, although admittedly I never thought it of you. Alright. Chains on and cock out: is that the story?”

“No. Haven’t you heard this? We were caught by Bolton’s insane sellswords, and they took my hand—”

“And _then_ you bed her.”

“It’s possible, for aught I know. I don’t remember much about it. You really don’t know this story?”

“Not from your side. Jaime, when I’d heard they’d captured you ...”

“That was a long time ago.”

“I never liked you going away to war. Leaving me all alone with our loving family. Cersei would have burned me alive to get you home, and Father ...”

“She blamed me once for _your_ arrow-bolt. Seems a bit unjust, since I wouldn’t have set you free if I expected you to _kill him.”_

“What would _you_ have done? I ought to have killed Cersei too, since she was certainly doing her best to kill me, but ...”

“She’d lost her son,” said Jaime. “I pray you never know how that feels.”

Silently, Tyrion drank.

Jaime said again: “I am _tired_. Tired of grieving, tired of war. Tired of death.”

“That one does’t look as though she knows the meaning of ‘relax’.”

“She saw Renly die, you know that? She was there with him, in the tent, and she could do _nothing_. She saw them take my hand and could do nothing ... and she loved him. Renly I mean.”

“Renly was —”

“Loved him as a friend, as a father, as a ... a brother. She loved him, and she could not save him or even fight against what had done it. And then I ...” He stared into the middle distance. “I left her for Cersei.”

“You left her to _kill_ Cersei. Because no one else could. No one else had the right. If you’re not going to drink that wine, I will take it from you. The pitcher seems to have emptied itself while we’ve been talking.”

Jaime passed it over. “I loved her, and I wanted her, and made her want me. And I left her. How can I compensate that?”

“I very seriously doubt,” said Tyrion, “that anyone one could make the lady in question do anything she disliked, unless a blade was to her throat. Even you, with all your good looks and quick sword — quick words.”

“The men who took my hand, the Mummmers. They tried to hurt her. Not with blades, either.”

That stopped Tyrion mid-drink. “ _Tried?_  You mean they failed? Never say they showed compassion to a lady in distress. I’ll have to send a raven with my thanks.”

“There were five ... six. She was beaten, she was screaming. I hear it sometimes still, until I wake and ...” Jaime took a deep breath. “I’d told her to go — go _away_ , go inside where — where it doesn’t matter anymore. She didn’t, or couldn’t, or would not. I don’t know. I stopped them. Lied. Found something they wanted more than to ... humiliate. Sometimes I think that is all we men are good for.”

“What?”

“Hunting and hurting. You know what Ramsay did to Lady Sansa?”

“I have not asked her for specifics. We get along well enough, Sansa and I, and I have no desire to damage that truce.”

“I believe she told Brienne. She’s teaching Sansa how to fight with a short blade. I heard her say — _I cannot promise it_ _will never happen again, but I can promise he will regret it_. Do you think she regrets me?”

“When have you abused her?”

“I left her. I took her and I left her and I made her cry.”

“Half of the castle hears you two of a night, and the lady does not seem to be in any pain.”

“Tyrion.”

“Jaime, open your idiot eyes and _think_. Is she bedding you for land, or money, or power? No. Even I don’t think that. I do not trust her, I do not _know_ her to trust her, but a blind bat in a cave could see she is no Cersei. If she lays with you of a night, it’s for pleasure or ...” He did not finish.

“Or what?”

“You tell me. Does she care for you?”

“No.”

Tyrion poured another glass. “You think you are that good a fuck?”

“I haven’t had any complaints,” said Jaime, much nettled: and Tyrion laughed in his face.

”Alright. You will do what you want, you always do ... but first, will you let me speak with her, alone? Without your big dumb head intruding all over the time?

“Don’t call her a whore.”

“Done.”

“Or imply that she’s ...” He stopped.

“Tall? Ungainly? Unattractive? Unladylike? Shouts so loud in her pleasure you’d think the place was on fire?”

“Yes. That. All of that. Don’t tell her any of that.”

Tyrion sighed. “I suppose we will have a lovely conversation about the weather.”

“Don’t bother trying to get her drunk, either. She doesn’t drink. And she has a terrible temper.”

“A perfect addition to the family. Are you ever going to call in a wine steward? I’m desperately thirsty. Sit down and drink with me, big brother, and tell me why you think this wench deserves you.”

So he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the swords are a _metaphor_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She hadn’t ever contemplated how much of a man’s body was accessible without actually removing a single garment.
> 
> (Lies. She’d contemplated it last night, over a supper of drinks & meat pie & interminable conversation that Jaime no doubt thought very clever.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written, i dunno, 22 June 2019 or thereabouts.

“I told you to be quiet.”

”I am!”

”Lies.” He shifted his hand inside her and suddenly it was hard to breathe, let alone keep from moaning aloud.

This has been Jaime’s idea, of course. _You need practice at controlling your voice_ _,_ he’d said. _What will you do if we’re afield some place? What if we’re being hunted?_

_Who’s hunting us?_

_Oh, I_ _grant you m_ _ost of our enemies are dead at the moment, but who knows what the future holds?_ He smiled. _I am only a helpless cripple, you know. I need you around for my protection_.

 _I suppose simply_ not fucking _isn’t an option for you,_ she said.

He gave her a look that made her warm all over, and said _: Is it an option for you?_

She had gone back to cleaning her sword, not answering, hoping nothing of her heart showed on her face. It probably did.

Now it was dark and the world was quiet and Jaime, that shameful man, was doing something with his mouth and hand together that made her knees wobble.

She must have made some sound because he stopped and raised his eyes. “Behave.”

“I didn’t. Did. I was _quiet_.”

“You certainly were not. Behave. Or I’ll stop.”

He bent back down and —

so Brienne shut her eyes. _Think of something else. Think of hunting._ Yes. Her father took her out now and then, the two of them with a few stewards. She never had a taste for it, she always hung back. Her father laughed: _You’ll never make a knight if you can’t take down game._ But she didn’t like to hear the screams of the dying doe. Fighting would be clean, she told herself. Battles are for honor.

She hadn’t considered that a man dying would sound so much like any other animal in pain.

There were many things she had not considered, hadn’t planned for ... 

... like the way a man’s callouses would feel on her, inside her. Jaime was learning to use his left hand for swords and writing and eating, no better choice, and —

She let out a noise that anyone could have heard and shifted to allow him a better angle.

“Shh.”

She sank her teeth into her lip and was resolutely silent until the motions stopped.

She opened her eyes again. Jaime’s head was up, watching her. “I didn’t ... didn’t say anything.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m _allowed_ to think!”

“Wench, I am asking _what_.” He crawled upward, putting his head in her neck. His hand lingered below her waist, teasing. “Tell me.”

She canted her hips, greedy for it, and he generously added a finger. “I was thinking about my father.”

“Just what every lover wants to hear. _Jaime, you remind me of my father._ Charming. Well, you do not remind me of mine. Frightful old goat. I suppose you don’t look like my mother either, aside from the blonde, but she died so long ago that — _You_ are supiciously well-behaved. Am I neglecting you, my lady?”

“You found other priorities.”

She didn’t mind listening to him complain about his family — excepting Tyrion, they were all dead. And _including_ Tyrion, there was a lot to complain of.

But they’d began a game. It would be _dishonorable_ to abandon the field. So she reached down to stroke him into losing.

She skimmed her hand along his waist and down, and he complained she was being unjust, this wasn’t about him, he was _perfectly_ capable of — “Fuck, Brienne!”

“Go on. You’re capable of what?”

“Circumspection,” he said, meek as a septa. “I am very docile and good.”

Sure he was. “Tell me more about this story.”

“The thing about me — my — my mother? I was a child, six or seven. The last I remember of her was being held on her, her hip, while she was heavy with Tyrion in her belly. Then Cersei wailed to be lifted too, and she couldn’t carry us both, so down I went, and oh gods, _all_ the gods, Brienne, yes.”

He was being too loud, for one, _and_ his fingers were still inside her. They shifted in an unfocused way that was very annoying.

And she didn’t want to stop touching him, not yet. Maybe not ever. She shifted her grip. He was heavy. Warm. It was good. “When did she die?”

“Tyrion. She died. Bled out. Lived a few days, but really that was it. Everyone knew.”

“Is that why ...” She hesitated. “Why your father hated Tyrion?”

He was breathing hard, sweating. It caught the candlelight, and didn’t answer.

It wasn’t fair for anyone to be so attractive. Annoying, stupid ...

He caught her looking — smiled like a cat got the cream — and readjusted so he was again above her.

“My father hated Tyrion because my father hated everyone.”

She licked her hand and found him again, and he did the same — again with that smile that made her want to push him to the ground and ... whatever. Fuck, fight, it didn’t matter.

”I heard that.”

”You didn’t hear _shit,”_ she said, with an unfortunate breathiness in her voice.

”Heard that, too.” But his tone was all gravel, sloppy and warm.  

He had remembered her and began to move as she was doing to him, a thumb right there and the same pattern of quick-slow-quick-quick-slow ...

Quiet. Quiet. She was being _quiet_.

He kissed her, smug and amused. “Do you think our enemies will not hear you if the words are _Jaime please more please?”_

”Shut up.”

”Although,” he said — pausing intermittently to grit his teeth — if I were fucking you  _properly_ , you wouldn’t be able to make any coherent words at—”

”Do it or not, just shut your mouth,” she growled: and he laughed again.

She was so wet between her legs that when he removed his hand and went inside, it was a disappointment: had she remembered wrong? surely he was bigger than that?

Then he twitched, and shivered, and her body bore down. _Yes_. She drew her hands up his waist slow and light, and he swore. 

“You promised I wouldn’t be able to speak, Jaime Lannister. And yet here I am. I can kiss, and bite, and lick,” demonstrating each. “Maybe I ought to try out that red-bearded man, what was his name, the little fellow ... Tyrion has assured me that size doesn’t always match size, if you understand me.”

He made a sound very much like a moan. But that couldn’t be, could it? When he was so _circumspect?_

He still wasn’t moving. She didn’t like it. “Show me why I should lay with you,” she told him. “I can find another knight. They’re common as flies and grass.”

“If you do, I’ll kill you both.”

”Not if you fight like you did this m-morning.”

”Poison,” he gasped; he was moving now, and it was difficult to keep a conversation. “Arrows. Daggers.”

He hit the right spot and she _felt_ herself make noise, rather than heard it. She bit down on the meat of his neck and he made a noise that was not subtle or quiet, either one, and she wanted to laugh at him about it but the stupid game didn’t matter, the marks he was making on her neck didn’t _matter_ ; she pressed him inside her and held him down and kissed him for every one he gave her until she forgot everything but skin, movement, pressure, sweat.

 

It was very quiet indeed, afterwards. She said his name — _Jaime, Jaime —_ and kissed him again and again, until he was flushed pink and smiling and himself again, hers again, looking as much a fool as any man did after the act, she supposed. But he wasn’t anyone: he was  _her_ Jaime. _Hers_.

She needed to start trusting that, she knew. But ... but ...

Jaime reached up and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “You look a damned mess,” he said. “I like it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am absolute shite at writing smut! therefore i practice, because how else can you improve. how else. 
> 
> (seriously, if you know a way, DM me. we can talk.)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 05 july 2019.

“I’m so glad you’re not a king.”

His small half-smile came out at that: deprecating. “ _Are_ you? Awfully useful skill, to be happy with what you’ve got. Are you also going to compliment me on my manly foresight in losing a hand?”

“Don’t be a shit. I’m serious. You’d make a terrible king.”

“Do leave off the compliments. My head is going to swell up and then I won’t fit through doorways anymore. What the hell are you talking about?”

“You don’t have that sort of mind, for strategy.”

“I can lead an army.”

“An army is not a war. And it certainly isn’t the same as helping people.”

Jaime snorted. “There’s very little _helping people_  when it comes to  being a lord, and even less for a king.”

“You did it,” she said.

He smiled again that terrible smile. “Yes. The brave kingslayer, who stabbed a man in the back. Brienne, must we argue this? Isn’t there any other way you’d prefer to insult me? Call me crippled, or a terrible swordsman. Say I fucked my sister. Say I have a small cock.”

“Are they still insults if they’re true?”

He laughed out loud, and she sighed with relief. There weren’t many things Jaime was truly confident in, she’d learned that by now, but he trusted in his cock.

Probably most men felt the same way. It would explain a lot. “You are _so many_ good things. And kings are not good.”

“No,” he said. “Kings are not _good_. Nor are most queens, I expect, or lords, or even lordlings. But if you were a queen, wouldn’t you have been a good one?”

She couldn’t think of questions like that, possibilities like that, how could she think of things like that? “I ... I believe in honor. But that isn’t _goodness_ , is it?”

“Are you really asking me? I’m not sure I know what either one is. Certainly I’ve never seen much of them. Honor,” he said. “Did my father have _honor_ , when he forced my brother to wed Sansa Stark? Did Tyrion, when he murdered him? Did Cersei ... did I, on killing Aerys?”

“You saved the city from burning.”

“And I stood by and watched a man boiled alive in his own armor. I pushed a child from a window, I—”

“You know, you’re right. I _don’t_ want to have this argument.” She thought of distracting him, touching him, it would work, but wasn’t that what Cersei had done to him? To convince him to join the Guard, to convince him to give in on a thousand things. Make him give in just to prove she could do it.

He rolled on his back, staring up. “Honor. It’s a fine word, isn’t it? You helped the Stark girls for it, you had me marched across half of Westros, you ...”

“Got you beaten into the dirt and your hand cut off. Yes.”

“That was not your fault.”

“It wasn’t yours, either! You stupid ... you _Lannister_.”

He smiled, not with pleasure. “Is that the worst insult you can find for me?”

“Yes. Jaime, when they took your hand, the night after that — do you remember what you said?”

“No.” He remembered almost nothing after that, not for a long while. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

She ignored him, of course. “You told me they’d as much as killed you, that they’d taken who you were. _I am that hand,_ you said.”

It did sound like something he would say. “So what?” He cleared his throat. “That is, ...”

“That‘s what you meant. Own it.”

She sounded snappish. She was never snappish, not like this, not to him. He squinted at her out of one eye. “They took off my hand and I wanted to die and your _honor_ wouldn’t let the Kingslayer off that easy. Is that why we’re fighting?”

“We are not _fighting_. This is not fighting, I’m not going to—”

“Bickering, squabbling, feuding, having a row. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t give a rat’s ass. Can we please finish it already?”

“You _lived_ ,” she said, in the tone of someone saying: _I won._

“Yes. I did. And?”

“They took your hand and you thought you’d lost yourself and you lived anyway, Jaime Lannister, because they can’t cut off parts of you without you letting them do it. Like you did with Aerys, like you did with Bran Stark—”

“You were there, you watched them hurt me, and you’re still saying I _let_  them do this?”

“Don’t be so damned literal! I am talking about you — yourself. You aren’t your sword hand and you aren’t your name and I’m _glad_ you’re not a bloody king because you would cut off pieces of yourself over and over, to keep the peace or to get another chest of gold or whatever the hell idiotic thing you’d feel you _needed_ to do.”

His jaw clenched.

She said: “I am glad you are who you are.”

“A idiotic one-handed lord without holding, shit with a sword ...”

“Yes. All that. And a kingslaying small-cocked sister fucker, too. Or did you forget the rest?“

“A  _Lannister_ ,” he said. “That’s enough, you said.”

“Yes,” she said: and then “No. No. Not Lannister.”

“My father would be disappointed—”

“Not Lannister,” she said again. “Not Kingslayer. _Jaime_. That’s who you are.”

At that, he finally turned his head from contemplating the ceiling and looked at her. “It doesn’t seem like much good to be this _Jaime_. Only one name, no titles, no lands ...”

“Enough. It’s enough. And it’s what I want.”

There were a thousand caustic replies he could have said, and someone else — Tyrion, for example — could have found a thousand more.

He thought of that, and he looked at her there waiting for him to say them, waiting to argue solely because he would not stop arguing: and he put his face in her neck, tucked against her skin, where it was warm and hidden and she would not see his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic: basically therapy, but sometimes you jerk off?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You were a bit tardy to the meeting earlier,” said Tyrion. “Am I to assume there were extenuating circumstances for you _both_?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written, ahhhhhh ... late june & 07 july 2019.

It still surprised Brienne that she could be dissuaded from her duty by something as simple — and frivolous — as a hand down her trousers.

But here they were.

 

“Past time we got ready,” she’d told him, sliding out bare from the furs. The stones were like ice against her feet, and she shivered herself into the first pair of trousers to hand.

He mumbled something that sounded like “Stark.”

“What?”

“S’ _dark_. No _sun_. No sun means no morning, no morning means no meeting, and no meeting means _come back to bed, please?_ I had you in my arms not two minutes ago and I don’t like you gone away.”

She ignored this. Though he was right about the darkness, at least; half the sky was grey and cold, with only a thin streak of light along the horizon. That didn’t matter. “You know the sky behaves differently in the North. We’re still late.”

He knew it. He still wasn’t getting up.

She sat on the bed, partly to pull on long woolen socks, partly to annoy him more effectively. “You also know if you’re tired, you have no one but yourself to blame.”

As expected, he sat up to argue with that one. “ _Only myself?_ You have a faulty memory. I seem to recall that you had something to do with it. Begging me for attention when I was quite worn out and ready to rest.”

Her traitorous face burned red. “Arise, ser.”

He spoke in a falsetto. _“Please, Jaime—”_

“Lannister, I told you to _get up.”_

_“More, I want more, please, I want you!”_

“I’ve kicked you in the belly before, if you recall; it was an effective argument. And I will do it again in five seconds ... four ...”

He swung his legs out, squinting and grumbling at her. “Are you wearing my clothes?”

“I am wearing clothes.”

“They’re _my_ clothes. Why are you wearing my clothes?” He rose — distractingly bare — and padded over to inspect her. “This floor is fucking cold.”

“Put on your socks.”

“... You probably stole them, too.“

She had. It didn’t matter. She tossed things at him — trousers, smalls, a tunic. “Dress!”

Jaime held them away from himself, peering as if he’d never seen anything like them before. “Are these yours?”

“Will you _stop_ dallying about? We have a meeting this morning. Everyone is probably gathered already without us, all because you are a layabed degenerate.”

”Humph,” said the degenerate in question.

“And I am hungry, and I suppose there’s no hope of breakfast now either. Another trouble I can lay at your feet.”

“I have something you can put in your mouth” — and he kissed her.

Her faithless heart couldn’t remember her duty when he touched her like that. So she pushed him away. “For the seventeenth time ....”

He kissed her again — slower this time — and rubbed a particular body part against her. Bringing her attention to it, as if she hadn’t noticed.

“This is insubordination and disrespect,” she told him. “I’m going to report you.”

He mumbled something that surely wasn’t worth listening to, and anyway she couldn’t hear a word, not with him kissing down her neck and sliding his hand down into her pants.

She made an unladylike noise.

“Not quite a protest,” he noted. “Will you include that in your report? _Jaime touched me, and I moaned aloud?_ ”

“I will only write the absolute truth.”

“Very diligent of you. Very responsible. And in return, I must make certain” (she shivered and clenched him) “I must make sure that you have no cause for complaint.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s not the length of the fic; it’s how you use it


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written 06 & 07 July 2019, with a sinus infection. ouch!

After the meeting and work and midday break and more work and supper and drinking afterwards and back to the room and fucking after that, when she forgot there was anyone else in the world and he kissed her deep, like he was trying to swallow down her voice — then, Brienne cried.

Jaime held her as she shook, saying nothing.

Finally she wiped her eyes and gave him a look. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Seems a bit unfair to make that assumption. Sadness isn’t a uniquely feminine trouble.”

She half-laughed. “You are dreadfully arrogant. You’ve had servants assigned to you before you were born, you likely had one especially paid to clean your small lordly ass...”

“And I hated every minute of it.” He adjusted himself, tugging on her until she crawled over and nestled against his right side. He liked her there, where he could hold her and still have a hand to use. “I hated Kings Landing, for all its towers and banners and people. Or maybe because of them. I loved Casterly Rock.”

— yes, he had. It was all wind and sky, lonesome and perilous, easy to win and useless to hold. He’d played on the pormitories for hours, alone or with Cersei, during the rare times she was permitted to travel so far.

He loved best the little tidal caves exposed in low water, forbidden to young lords who might grow up to be important. Most were mere holes in the cliff face, but some of the caves lead back and back, a worm-eaten path underneath the very ground the castle stood on, a black maze of slippery, mossy rock and standing water barely large enough for a slim child to pass through.

More than once he had lost track of time and had to swim through passages he had crawled through before; more than once someone carried tales to Lord Tywin, and Jaime was soundly whipped.

And one time he had been so near to dying that when he came staggering up the long hill path, the guard gasped out loud. “My lord!”

Jaime was thirteen that day. He was quick and sure and considered himself a man, or as good as, or nearly, but he had not started to grow; even Cersei was taller than him. And he was still a child in the guard’s eyes, he saw that.

It rankled. “Is something amiss, ser?” he said.

“My lord ...” said the guard, uncertain.

The young lord stood there, half-drowned and looking like it; he was bloodied and bruised and torn from where he’d scraped against sea-walls, dripping with saltwater and missing a long patch of skin on his arm.

Not an hour before he’d been caught between two rocks while the water slammed against him, gasping for air while his guts dropped in a panic. He hadn’t thought of Cersei then, nor his father nor even Tyrion; he had thought only: _Not yet. Not me, not today, I won’t let you._

When the cave let him free, he could have wept, and perhaps he did. He could have wept again when he came out entirely from the cliffs and saw the open ocean, beating against the shoreline with the rage of any high tide: but this time he was too tired to waste energy on gratitude. He only swam the little distance to the ladder carved deep into the rockface, waited for a good moment, and climbed.

Now he stood and met the eyes of the guard he had trusted or even loved through all his boyhood, and he said his first adult lie. “Only a misplaced foot and a good dunking, Ser Mirath. The steps from the bank grow concave.”

Mirath straightened his back and cleaned his face of expression. “Yes, my lord. As you will.”

And Jaime went on.

 

Brienne was never so obedient as Mirath. She mumbled, speaking into his shoulder, “You loved Casterly Rock because it was promised to you.”

“You have that turned around. And when we were children, you know, they assumed I would marry and inherit ...”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

Jaime said nothing. Then: “My inheritences have nothing to do with your tears.” Probably. “Or are you weeping that you’ll never see Lord Selwyn’s banners unfurl down the walls? Whatever those are.”

“Tall columns of stone or wood,” said the wench, “that hold up ceilings and create smaller areas of space.”

“You are deliberately antagonizing me, Brienne of Tarth. It must feel odd, after the many years you’ve antagonized me just by existing.”

How many hours he had spent thinking about how unattractive she was? When had he realized that thinking about a naked lass and growing hard from it meant you wanted to lie down with her? No matter what words he used to describe Brienne, his cock knew the truth of things. It had done its best, if only he’d listened.

Jaime said: “You’re certain you don’t want to tell me ...?”

She sniffed. “No. It doesn’t matter. Just hold me. I’ll ...”

“No complaint meant, my lady, but I have been holding you all night.”

“Then shut your mouth awhile.” She kissed him. “Spend the time brooding over all the ways you hate a certain big ugly wench.”

“Brienne ...”

“Shh. Brood. You’re good at that. No talking.”

So he was quiet awhile, and soon enough her breathing evened out and slowed. He watched her face and thought of the many many ways he _hated_ her, and how much he wanted to demonstrate it, in how many ways ...

But for now, for now, she was resting: he would let her rest.

And soon enough he joined her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is a catbird outside my window, making the most unholy din. i am doing my best to train it to sing “The Rains of Castamere” but so far, no luck ...

**Author's Note:**

> all this fic was typed on my phone. not recommended.


End file.
